Brennan: Condi Rice's childhood tougher than playoff gig

Condoleezza Rice, who has worked for Stanford University for decades, is shown in a file photo celebrating after the Cardinal won the 2013 Rose Bowl game against Wisconsin Badgers. Rice is one of 13 members on the College Football Playoff selection committee, which will choose four teams to participate in a playoff after the 2014 season.(Photo: Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports)

Story Highlights

The only woman on the College Football Playoff committee is an avid, and knowledgeable, fan

With a background as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Rice brings a global view

Rice says she started following football as a child, picking up her father's love of the game

This is a typical autumn Saturday for one of the 13 members of the new College Football Playoff selection committee:

Awaken at 6 a.m., West Coast time, and work out while watching ESPN's College Game Day. Catch the early games, often from the ACC or Big Ten, then segue right into the later afternoon games, which often include Notre Dame. If Stanford is at home, this committee member will be there. If not, it's more football on TV. The day finally ends with ESPN's College Football Final.

Then wait six days and do it all over again. This is the way Condoleezza Rice tackles football.

"Watching football," she said in a telephone interview Thursday morning, "is one of my favorite things to do. It has a wonderful resonance for me because ever since I was a little girl, I did that with my father."

Isn't this exactly what we want on this controversial committee? Someone who, of the 13, has one of the most balanced, global views of the sport? Who isn't currently entangled with a particular athletic department, with all the messy conflicts of interest that relationship will generate? Who has the life perspective to step back, to settle an argument and to make a point that will not only resonate in the local bar, but also with boys and girls in high school study hall?

Some football geeks want 13 people who were in the trenches with the likes of Bear and Bobby and Woody and Bo. Somehow, they think, that makes them tough enough for the job.

What then do we make of the one who was in the trenches battling Saddam?

Former Secretary of State Rice is nuts about college football. Yes, she didn't play the game. Nor did two other members of the committee, my former USA Today colleague Steve Wieberg and former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese. But, like Wieberg and Tranghese, she knows it inside and out, from her days as a young girl when she and her father would watch games together on television, later go to Alabama games and all the while scour Street and Smith's college and pro football magazines.

I frankly think there should have been more of these kind of people on the committee and less of the big lugs who did play. College football is nothing without its fans, and these three are excellent representatives. These are the people with the most perspective, which will yield the best results in an incredibly complicated process.

Just wait and see who ends up brokering the deal that gets us closest to having the best four teams in the playoff starting next season. Football fans, breathe easy. Everything in Rice's history has prepared her for this moment. I mean, once you've taken care of Saddam Hussein, you can handle a Barry Alvarez-Pat Haden brouhaha any day.

That said, Rice has not just been a willing bystander to this game. As provost at Stanford, she hired both Dennis Green and fellow committee member Ty Willingham to coach the football team. Far worse hires have been made by other members of the playoff committee.

When asked what she thinks about paying athletes, her answer is much more thoughtful and reasonable than some of the usual bluster we hear on the topic:

"The collegiate athlete receives an opportunity to get an education at fine institutions across the country," she said. "They get to do that without the burden of loans and work study that a lot of other students undertake to get that same education. An education is valuable. I'm a believer that there is really nothing more valuable than your education which nobody can ever take from you. We have to make sure that we're doing a really good job of allowing our athletes to take full advantage of the educational opportunities at these universities, but what a great thing to be able to do something you love, playing a sport, and to go to college without the burden of the loans a lot of students take on."

Rice grew up at a time when most girls in this country were not encouraged to love or play sports. Also for her, there was the added burden of being a black child in the South in the 1960s. She and her family moved to Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 1965, shortly after Alabama games were integrated.

She remembers the days before then: "Our parents were really remarkable at that time in that they managed to sort of put those questions (about segregation) aside, but I think we knew as kids that those games were off limits to us."

She also remembers the day when she finally could go.

"I remember the first Alabama football game that I went to, Alabama-Ole Miss, and going to the stadium, I think it was probably about 1967 or maybe '66, and I was just really excited to go to an Alabama football game."

Perhaps this is why Rice met all the ridiculous criticism of her selection to the new playoff committee with such grace and dignity. Being told she couldn't go somewhere or do something new and different? Been there. Done that.